Quote:
Originally Posted by FuglyStick
This is what I'm saying. Why does it take a guy doing a news parody show on Comedy Central to call these jokers out? Why is Jon Stewart the guy who has to hold them accountable? Aren't there, I don't know--JOURNALISTS--who should be doing this? Why do we have to watch Comedy Central to get to the root of the matter?
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The answer is horrifically simple: no one took the Daily Show seriously until it was too late. With other news shows, the PTB know right off the bat that they need to assert their influence, making little snips here and there, nudging the show in a certain direction so that there isn't too much questioning of the status quo. The Daily Show has segments called "Clusterfuck to the Whitehouse" where they photoshop Bush and a couch in order to sell a pun which is only loosely related to a news story. It's 99% satire, which is able to camouflage the other 1%, which has substance. It's been that way ever since Craig Kilborne really hit his stride, but it started as a big joke, making fun of the 24 hour news cycle and how seriously the news circle jerk takes itself.
We've come to a point where the show, and in particular Stewart, are a little too well known to start nudging the same way you might see someone nudging Rachel Maddow or Wolf Blitzer. We, the collective audience, already know what Jon Stewart is like when he's essentially off the leash, and we'd notice if things started to change. And Jon even has a partner in Colbert now, further venturing into the odd combination of 99% parody and 1% substantive journalism. Remember, that's about 1% more than we normally get.